benefits

Spare a moment over the festive season in your warm centrally heated home with luxury food in abundance for the 300,000 people in Britain who are homeless, including 128,000 childrenand over 4,000 rough sleepers; the result of Tory policies which have taken money from the most vulnerable in our society and handed it to the better-off. While you enjoy your opulent Christmas sadly it’ll be a different story for homeless people waking up shivering on the pavement, families with children waking on Christmas day in cramped depressing B&Bs or hostel rooms. The children will have few if any new toys for Christmas, their parents having been made destitute as a result of Tory benefit cuts and other austerity measures.

This Christmas think about the disabled people whose already difficult lives have been detrimentally affected by your so called welfare reforms which the UN have condemned. Vicious attacks on the most vulnerable in our society which have resulted in an increase in poverty and the overall death rate including a high rate of suicides by disabled people after the withdrawal of welfare benefits. This also includes the mentally ill of course who now have to increasingly cope alone as there are 6,700 fewer mental health nurses and 5,000 fewer mental health beds since 2010.

Thanks to you Theresa May and your government we are now living in a period of great social injustice of which sadly some people are not aware. You and your predecessor have managed to turn the clock back to a time most of us do not remember and thought had been consigned to history.

Tell me: How do you sleep at night?

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Perhaps Theresa May and other Tories should also consider the following questions:

I never thought the day would come when the UK would be subject to UN condemnation concerning human rights, particularly in respect to its treatment of disabled and vulnerable people. Anyone reading this please consider the above, Theresa May is not solely responsible. If you voted Tory and continue to support them you are complicit in this, the greatest social injustice in our country in a long time. It is shameful that so many people either are ignorant of what is happening or simply do not care.

“Stand for what is right even it that means standing alone”
Suzy Kassem

A bit short notice if you are not already aware of the following protest, but if you can please do join the demonstration outside Downing street and around the country taking place tomorrow Tuesday November 21st.

If you can’t participate in the protest please send an email to your MP supporting the demonstration.

The Tories’ destruction of our welfare system is unrelenting.With every passing day more and more shocking facts come to light as vulnerable and poor people are plunged ever deeper into poverty and despair.

Here are some of the latest

A cheap stunt by the government over Universal Credit will lead to thousands of children a year being worse off

“The government has made a significant change to the controversial roll out of Universal Credit. It’s launched a consultation on proposed changes to a policy affecting over one million children. It says more children will be helped by the plans.

But dig a little deeper into the details and it actually seems like a cheap stunt. Because the proposals could eventually lead to around 16,000 of the most deprived children being worse off every year.”

Theresa May Day + 3 – Families who made a new Universal Credit application still not heard if successful.First weekend since applying & what money they had will be starting to run short**Estimated over 60,000 households with 40,000 children no money until after Xmas @theresa_maypic.twitter.com/QUqLJDODZc

3 million families are losing an average of 2,000 a year as a result of UC

Action on poverty says that more than a million children will be in poverty due to cuts as a result of universal credit.

Does this insensitive robotic woman have no feelings. The number of people being evicted has gone down so she says in the above video, by a whole third, so that makes it all right then despite the fact that two thirds, hundreds of people, continue to be evicted as a result of universal credit. You’re just a number to them, this woman and others of her ilk have no feelings, no compassion no concern for you as an individual. It has been announced that over Christmas people who are changing to universal credit will get no money until after the christmas period. How the hell are they supposed to survive for six weeks with no income. Hard at anytime but more devastating this time of year.

Please sign the following petition:

A small admin oversight by the government will mean thousands of people will be left penniless this Christmas, without enough to pay their rent or buy food – let alone celebrate Christmas.

What is happening to poor and disabled people here in the UK is disgusting

The government will not even investigate whether people claiming Universal Credit are forced to use food banks

Separately, the Peabody Trust housing association, one of the UK’s biggest social landlords, has calculated the delays will put about 23,000 families – with 41,000 children – at risk of destitution in the run-up to Christmas.

The problems are likely to escalate with the extension of Universal Credit. Even by the end of January, only 10 per cent of benefits claimants will be receiving it.

How the hell can anyone live on £22 a week. Moreover this money has to be paid back!

Here is more of the grim reality of Tory Britain as diseases of the Victorian era return to Salford: rickets and beriberi – thought to be long eradicated – are on the rise due to food poverty according to a shocking new report

Never forget if you vote Tory you are complicit ! Your actions in the ballot box have set the clock back to a time and circumstances that we had hoped had been consigned to history long ago. Your vote is destroying the lives of children and disabled and sick people. Think of that when you sit down to your Christmas dinner, in your warm home and watch your children pay with their new toys. Thanks to your vote Christmas for many people will be like something out of Dickens!

Comment on the Guardian article above which basically sums up the situation.

“One way to judge a society is by our children .If that is the case this cruel tory goverment has proved to be an abject failure .There is a massive divide between the rich and the poor.This has to be a deliberate policy. This goverment has chosen to give more to the very rich at the cost of the poor .There policies are designed to be cruel to those struggling to get by .This Tory goverment are well aware of the plight of the poor .By there actions have proved they don’t care.

Food banks are mistake this goverment has allowed .these statements on our society are just the tip of the ice berg .Our public services a vital life line for us all are collapsing.worse child poverty is rife in our country in 2017 .employment deregulation is seen as outrageous .When the ultra rich benefit from tax breaks ,and then to add insult to injury use tax havens to avoid there responsibility to society we all live in .The duty of any goverment is to ensure its citizens are treated fairly .Its obvious this goverment has failed.”

If you can, please attend your nearest protest tomorrow.

Also please write to your MP express in the strongest terms, though politely, your outrage concerning the continuous onslaught of misery and suffering caused by Universal Credit and other benefit cuts and changes on vulnerable members of our society including children, people with disabilities and the elderly.

“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

Hubert H. Humphrey

With all the Brxit chaos, the plight of the most vulnerable members of our society – including disabled people and the low paid – seems to be increasingly overlooked. This, one of the greatest social injustices of our time, means an additional 400,000 children in the UK will be pushed into poverty by benefit changes, including the roll-out of Universal Credit

The study found that the freeze on most working-age benefits will see around 7.5 million low income households have their benefit entitlements cut by more than £500 per year in real terms. The limiting of tax credits and universal credit to two children will leave some low income families with £2,500 less in benefits than they otherwise would have received, the report says.

The reality of Universal Credit (UC) as a mother of two is unable to pay her rent, forced to use a food bank, choose between gas and electricty and take out a £900 debt as a result of delays in payment

Even severely disabled people are not exempt, in fact one of the policy’s most shameful parts is barely being noticed: the hidden cut being forced on some of Britain’s most severely disabled people. Philip, mentioned in the article below, who has multiple disabilities is losing £40 per week after changing to UC. He cannot afford to eat properly and skips meals which is affecting is health. He now has rent arrears of over £450.

This article shows the hidden cut being forced on some of Britain’s most severely disabled people.

Read about the controversial roll out of universal credit which with its seven weeks wait for payment of benefits – sometimes 60 days if there are delays – has left people unable to pay their rent, needing to resort to food banks and eventually getting into debt resulting in poverty and distress.

Severely disabled people will lose as much as £78.35 per week.

When faced with some difficult questions, this Tory minister’s silence over the DWP was deafening [VIDEO]

‘Deeply flawed’

But Paula Peters from DPAC does not think UC is “working”, as the DWP says it is. She told The Canary:

UC will cause extreme poverty and distress for millions of claimants. Conditionality under UC will be the order of the day. And if claimants are unable to meet the stringent demands under the Claimant Commitment they will be sanctioned.

Under UC disabled people will find they will miss out on transition protection, and in many cases treated as a new claim. This means that severely disabled people stand to lose £78.35 per week, as UC has no severe disability or enhanced disability premium. This will plunge disabled people further into poverty. Research has already shown that the additional cost of being disabled is £500 a month, and with the removal of social security payments disabled people are unable to meet these costs.

But calling for UC to be paused does not go far enough. This system is deeply flawed and will cause, and is causing, mass distress and harm. It needs to be scrapped.

Here are more real life accounts of the devastating affects of the Tories welfare reforms

Mum and new baby face Christmas eviction after WCA ‘nightmare

“A disabled woman with a new baby is set to be evicted a fortnight before Christmas because the Department for Work and Pensions stopped her benefits when she failed to attend a “fitness for work” test she had not been told about.”

“The mother-of-two said last night (Wednesday) that she felt as though she had been living through a “nightmare”.

She had previously had seven miscarriages, before giving birth through IVF to her first son Harrison, who is now three, and Edward, who was conceived naturally.

She said the ordeal DWP had put her through felt like “someone is standing on your head and pushing you under water”.

She said: “I feel numb by the whole ease with which they can destroy somebody.

“I know that some people have committed suicide [in situations like this]and I can totally see how something like that can happen. The system is so cruel.”

From top graduate to fleeing a bedsit – how Universal Credit nearly destroyed me

I waited months for Universal Credit. Then my landlord kicked me out and I was forced to move in with a man I didn’t know.

“Where are you living right now?”

“I’m just staying on his floor for now. It’s a bit dodgy because I have to leg it every Friday when the landlord’s son comes to collect the rent – he can’t know I’m living here.”

“You’d definitely be a priority for a place in refuge. How soon can you get here?”

I blinked. Some faceless person on the other end of a phone wanted to help me. I pushed down the flicker of hope that had ignited within me. There was probably a catch. I couldn’t trust that I might finally be free.

“If you text me when you arrive at the station, I’ll come and pick you up. I’ll text you my number now. See you soon.”

As promised the text came through. I sprang to life. Throwing the few belongings I had left into a suitcase, I began a journey that took me across London, to one of its outer suburbs. As promised, there was a car waiting. I was driven to a large, spacious house with a garden.

The case worker showed me to my room, gave me a bag of toiletries, then went back down the stairs. Once I was alone, I sank to the floor, completely numb. It was over. Being homeless, getting abused, was over.

But I was left with a question: how could this happen? How could Universal Credit change someone’s life so disastrously?

Regarding the opening quotation concerning the moral test of a government. It is obvious that the government have not passed such a moral test and never will. It is only Labour who have in the past fought for social justice regarding those who are vulnerable in our society. Why people continue to vote for the policies of injustice I can never understand as no one knows if they or those they care about will need benefits in the future.

The world is now ever more turbulent and it is increasingly more difficult to know where to begin to protest the onslaught as equality, social justice, decency, compassion fight against a seething mass of bigotry, social injustice, racism, right wing subjugation of the poor, increased abuse of animals, war … well the list is just so long. The headlines, as biased to the right as they are here in the UK, mostly seem more interested in Sport, the new opiate of the people, than much else. Seemingly sport is more important than the misery mostly inflicted by the right wing and those of right wing mentality – the other night a sports segment on the BBC came before any mention of the fiasco in North Korea where two psychopaths who hold so much power rattle their sabres with the resulting possibility of leading us to the brink of nuclear war.

Undercover of all this the Tories continue their agenda with increasingly more austerity as if the disaster of Grenville Tower, the result of austerity, greed and neglect had never happened.

Right wing political ideology, particularly in its extremes as is the case today, will never bring about social justice, a fair world and a just society, it therefore must be eliminated permanently.

The world it seems is becoming more right wing, more fascist, racist and intolerant and the struggle to procure a decent existence for us all more of a challenge. I am shocked by the displays of open racism in the USA, the violence, hate, bigotry and intolerance. What an appalling display of hate in Charlottesville as an ugly crowd of vile racist thugs, emboldened by the bigoted rhetoric of Trump’s extreme right wing agenda, wreaked mayhem. Such has no place in the modern world, it is sickening to every decent person.

We need to bring about change in the world urgently including here in the UK. We need to stop the spread of the right wing chaos that is making the lives of millions a living nightmare.

We have to keep speaking out against the rise in right wing agendas which are changing our world, taking it back to a time we once thought had passed into history.

The People’s Assembly will be holding a week of protest, demonstrations, cultural events, rallies, comedy, music and public meetings all across Manchester while the Conservative Party hold their conference there.

The week of action will include a national demonstraiton on the day the Conservative Party Conference opens:

The election result has left Theresa May and the Conservative Party with a weak, unstable Government and represents a rejection of their vicious policies that only benefit those at the top.
The week of action will demonstrate the huge opposition to the politics of austerity, racism and war and demand an alternative that works for everyone. Full timetable avaliable soon – accomodation & transport will be avaliable.

We are compiling the timetable of events for the week. Keep checking our website for details. If you are part of an organisation, band, performer or speaker who would like to take part in the week, please email us.”

For a thorough run down of the detrimental policies of the Tory government the above article and its links are highly recommended

We must do all we can short of violence to rid ourselves of this blight to humanity (namely RIGHT WING POLITICS) the other species with whom we share this world and the plant itself if we are to ever have a decent existence which values the right to life, and a good quality of life, for every being that exists. Ousting the Tories and replacing with a real socialist Jeremy Corbyn is a good way to start.

President Trump wants Congress to drastically cut federal support for food assistance to the poorest Americans by some 25 percent over the next decade. An astonishing 43 million of the US’s poor people rely on America’s Food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program SNAP. Most recipients live in households with children (about 72%) and more than a quarter live in households with seniors or people with disabilities.

To make matters even worse Trump in a really devious ploy proposes to penalise (charge) retailers who accept food stamps.

Please sign and share the petition below which now needs only another 500 signatures

“Once again our country’s most vulnerable citizens are the target of President Trump’s brutal cuts. This time the it is the 43 million Americans that rely on the SNAP program – formerly known as the US Food Stamp Program – that could be hit hard. The Trump administration is proposing $191 billion dollar in cuts to the program over the next 10 years but what’s more he now wants to charge – read penalize– retailers for accepting the food stamps that often serve as a temporary lifeline for America’s poor.

The proposed fee to SNAP participating retailers could encourage independent and smaller grocers to leave to program. This means that there would be fewer retailers available to SNAP participants, many of whom already live in food deserts. For example, the National Association of Travel Plazas and Truckstops has come out against the president’s plan because, while most city dwellers view truckstops as a place to grab a quick snack, for many of the rural poor it is the only place to shop and get sustenance. “

Millions of people like Reginald Porter-Bey will suffer as a result of this gravely unjust proposal:

“Reginald Porter-Bey, 59, who used to work as a printer at the Pentagon, started using food stamps a decade ago when he was homeless and jobless. “They’re very important to get through the month. You’ve got to know how to find bargains.”

Porter-Bey, who has five children, added: “It would have a hell of an impact. That’s taking food out of my mouth and other people’s mouths who’ve got kids. That’s not fair. People voted for Trump and he slapped them in the face. There are people in West Virginia who are poor just like here. He doesn’t care because he’s all right.”

“Conservative media outlets such as Fox News have previously referred to food stamp users as “moochers”, “parasites” and “takers” instead of “makers”. Last week Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney said: “If you’re on food stamps and you’re able-bodied, we need you to go to work.”

But according to the government’s own figures, most families on Snap – 55% of them – do have a family member working. The issue is that they do not make enough money to feed their families. “This budget is not an evidence-based exercise in policy-making. It’s oriented at cutting government spending in order to lavish tax cuts on the wealthy,” said Dean.”

If you live in the UK the above rhetoric is very similar to comments made by the media here and implied by the Tory government referring to benefit claimants – including sick and disabled people and people who simply cannot get jobs because there are few jobs available too them – as scroungers fraudsters , parasites, skivers, work-shy, lazy, stupid, feckless with terms such as”handout” “something for nothing” . Note also like the UK many of the people who claim SNAP are working people whose wages are too low to support them sufficiently even to put food on the table. Yet another similarity is that cuts to Snap and other benefits are made in order to cut taxes to the rich.

I cannot understand the mentality or the purpose of these constant attacks on the poor though of course the language of “scrounging” “parasites”and so on is meant to poison people’s attitudes to benefit claimants. Whether here or in the USA such treatment of vulnerable people is deeply unjust, grossly immoral and not worthy of any country that wishes to be considered civilised. To deny people enough food to nourish them when enough food is available is surely a violation of a basic human right. To go hungry even die while food stores are overflowing with an abundance of food is a great social injustice and frankly a crime against humanity. The US is a rich country, it is shameful that a government of millionaires led by a fabulously wealthy president sees fit to attack the most vulnerable of its citizens while giving tax breaks to the rich.

Both here and in the USA it seems that poor people are under constant threat of cuts to their meagre incomes by the right wing governments that for reasons beyond my comprehension millions of working class people continue to vote for. Here in the UK once again the electorate which comprises mostly working class people (60% of Britons regard themselves as working class) return a right wing government to five more years of power, five more years of austerity: cuts to benefits for sick and disabled people, including the removal of mobility vehicles, cuts to the NHS , to schools and recently voting for a one percent pay rise cap for firefighters, nurses and other pubic sector workers, to name but a few of the austerity measures implemented by the present government. And we must never forget the latest casualty of austerity the Grenfell fire where well over 80 people lost their lives – though the final toll could be far higher – as result of cut backs and profits before people. I can well envision that if the Tories, propped up by the equally extreme DUP, continue their term in government for the full five years we will see an end to the NHS and universal free health care.

I fear for our future and for future generations, the other species with whom we share this earth and the very earth itself. I can well imagine a world where the vast majority will have no or little food, shelter and the basics of existence while the tiny minority will live surrounded by obscene wealth supported by the labour of those who will barely have enough to subsist on. Furthermore as a result of automation there will simply be millions thrown on the scrap heap, their services not required eking out a living from a dying planet destroyed by the insatiable greed of the one percent – seemingly aided and abetted by the very people whose lives are detrimentally affected by the right wing polices of greed, inequality and social injustice which the electorate seems so keen to support.

Related Links

Behold the full horror of Donald Trump’s 25 percent food stamps cut

President Donald Trump wants Congress to slash federal support for food assistance to the poorest Americans by some 25 percent over the next decade, the White House budget unveiled Tuesday shows.

Such a deep cut could be backbreaking for the more than 40 million Americans — many of them children — who qualify for the nation’s premier anti-hunger program.

Trumps cuts to food stamps is not the only austerity measures which will effect poor people.

Trump’s budget: major slashes to social programs – but $1.6bn for the wall

Millions of people stand to lose Medicaid access, alongside cuts to welfare and food stamps, under a proposed budget that still has numerous hurdles to jump

Donald Trump will embrace hardline rightwing economics on Tuesday with a budget that proposes severe cuts to social safety net programmes while allocating $1.6bn to a border wall.

Millions of people would lose access to Medicaid, the government insurance programme for the poorest and many disabled Americans. Food stamps for people on low incomes would be cut over the next 10 years under the White House plan and the families of undocumented workers would be frozen out of key tax breaks.

Read about the history behind SNAP. Again similar to the UK the US is proposing to take a step back in time and undo all its social progress concerning welfare which again like the UK requires improvement rather than reducing its effectiveness, I can well imagine that both here and in the US such welfare programmes will eventually be dismantled after years of gradual cuts.

Donald Trump’s Budget Cuts Would Leave Many Americans Hungry

Their bellies were swollen and their fragile limbs covered with sores that would not heal. Clothed in rags, these children of the Mississippi Delta huddled in crumbling shacks with empty iceboxes, not a morsel of food to be found.

It was a level of human suffering and despair that brought a New York Senator to tears. Walking, stunned, from one hovel to the next, Senator Robert F. Kennedy saw conditions that rivaled what he’d seen in third-world countries.

It was 1967. Kennedy had headed south in response to a report by civil rights attorney Marian Wright that detailed levels of childhood hunger unconscionable in the richest nation on earth. What he saw there helped galvanize a nationwide response.

Since Trump has been in office he has inflicted the most brutal cuts on the working poor “The Senate health care bill he seeks to pass targets the sick, elderly, disabled and impoverished with breathtaking precision. His proposed budget threatens not just SNAP but heating aid, legal services, student loans and mental health care for those most in need. And, while that budget cuts hundreds of billions of dollars from policies to empower the working class, his tax plan would give even more than that to the very richest among us.”

The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life . . . the children; those who are in the twilight of life . . . the elderly; and those who are in the shadow of life . . . the sick . . . the needy . . . and the disabled.”
Hubert Humphrey

This news has been around for a few days and somehow I missed it. I cannot however let this great news go without mention.

I am pleased to learn that the United Nations is carrying out an inquiry into “systematic and grave violations” of the human rights of disabled people by the Tory government here in the UK? Though I knew that the UN were undertaking an inquiry into the UK’s human rights violations in this regard I did not know that it had finally been confirmed. According to a
spokesperson from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) the UN inquiry “will examine the vicious and punitive attacks on disabled people’s independent living as well as the cuts which have seen so many placed in inhuman circumstances and has led to unnecessary deaths.”

“The United Nations is carrying out an unprecedented inquiry into “systematic and grave violations” of disabled people’s human rights by the UK government, Disability News Service (DNS) can finally confirm.

DNS revealed last August that the UK appeared to have become the first country to face a high-level inquiry by the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD).”

In the meantime keep campaigning, writing letters and signing petitions such as the one below:

“Leaving people with no means of feeding themselves, keeping warm and keeping essential electrical appliances working is unconscionable and has no place in a civilised and rich society such as Great Britain.”

Too many people have die and suffered. Act now and Implement these Select Committees recommendations.

It is claimed that the government ignores petitions, whether of not this is true it is still a good idea to sign and voice your opinion, it shows the level of public feeling regardless as to whether or not the government decide to ignore petitions or letters or any other form of protest.

The treatment of sick and disabled people, and the unemployed and low paid for that matter, here in the UK during this and the previous Tory government, aided and abetted by the Lib/Dems, is shocking and now that they have the majority is getting ever more abusive and punitive.

“Many disabled people are facing a multitude of attacks on their human rights and living standards. It is rarely just one or two issues per person. This is the crucial point in the current retrogression of the human rights of disabled people – attacks are being carried out in every area of our lives.”

“There has been a massive rise in the numbers of disabled people being sanctioned and left reliant on food banks, and the increasing levels of malnutrition people are suffering due to increased poverty,”DPAC spokeswoman quoted in Herald Scotland

Along with unfair assessments, cuts and sanctions is the Nazi style campaign to vilify benefit claimants labelling them “scroungers “and “Skivers”. This is outrageous and unethical treatment that has to stop now, such treatment of the most vulnerable in our society has no place in the UK, one of the richest nations in the world. Shame on Cameron and IDS who have violated the human rights of sick and disabled people causing deaths and unimaginable misery. I hope now that finally they will get their comeuppance and that the main instigators Cameron and IDS and all those who enthusiastically supported them will finally be recognised for the evil and vile people that they are and that this grave injustice will end once and for all.

Thanks to the grassroots campaigning organisation DPAC who have tirelessly petitioned the UN to launch an inquiry when charities for the disabled and the Labour party have done so little.

Below are links to articles and personal accounts of the reality of how Tory benefits cuts have affected the most vulnerable in our society. Ignored for the most part by mainstream media these stories need telling again and again and should not be allowed to fade into obscurity. The fact that 25 percent of people who are entitled to vote voted Tory either means that 25 percent of our fellow citizens don’t give a dam about the shocking treatment of people who are unfortunate to a have to depend on benefits, including disabled and sick people, or they are ignorant of what is happening. A third possibility of course is that those who voted Tory believed all the anti benefit propaganda spewed out by biased right-wing media.

Thousands have died after being found fit for work, DWP figures show

“Nearly 90 people a month are dying after being declared fit for work, according to new data that has prompted campaigners and Labour leadership contenders to call for an overhaul of the government’s welfare regime.”

“…7,200 claimants had died after being awarded ESA and being placed in the separate work-related activity group – a category which identifies claimants who are unfit to work but may be able to return to work in the future.”

“My personal story is just one of millions, millions of stories of no real significance to anyone in power but of very real significance and worth in human terms. What the government is doing is not saving the country from austerity but smashing the lives of millions. Disabled, vulnerable and poor people are being portrayed as feckless workshy scroungers, social pariahs who need teaching a lesson. It is an ideological Conservative dismantling of the welfare state, destruction of the health service, marketising social housing and higher education that is hurling this country back into an economically and socially divided nation.”

“I became badly psychologically ill a few years ago at 17, diagnosed with major depression and general anxiety disorder which developed further into physical conditions and eventually made life impossible to function most days.”

“Requests for hardship payments may be made by people who say they have a mental condition. A person will only be a member of a vulnerable group if the condition causes limitation in functional capacity because of a physical impairment.”

It continues: “It is extremely rare for a mental condition to produce a physical impairment that limits or restricts functional capacity but it can happen.”

http://www.welfareweekly.com/sanctioned-jobseekers-with-mental-health-problems-are-not-vulnerable-says-dwp/ – please be sure to read the above in full. To comment fully on the outrageous claim that mental illness does not limit functional capacity and vulnerability would need a separate entry. Mental health conditions to name but two of the most obvious and most common, agoraphobia and obsessive compulsive disorder OCD, can incapacitate sufferers in such a way that they can no longer leave their home, sometimes not even one room. Sufferers of conditions such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia can be even more severely affected. Indeed mental illness can be physically incapacitating in the extreme, such as a person with depression may become catatonic. Even if this was the case people still have to feed themselves, keep warm, pay their rent and so on. Mental illness is a profoundly disabling condition which can prevent a person from functioning in any capacity whatsoever. How the hell can you work if you cannot get out of bed incapacitated by depression or you cannot leave your home as a result of agoraphobia?In fact in some way those with a mental health condition may be more vulnerable because it is far less easy to fight for your rights when your mind is in turmoil as a result of delusional thinking and or anxious fearful thoughts, when thought processes are numbed by depression or you are stuck in the turmoil of compulsive behaviours incapacitated by fear and dread. A sufferer of a mental illness often finds it difficult to communicate either by talking or writing, a phone call can be a monumental ordeal of stress and anxiety. Few understand the effect of mental illness on the entire life of a person who suffers in this way and how added stress can exacerbate symptoms. Publilius Syrus once said that “pain of the mind is worse than pain of the body” and in many ways this may be so, it most certainly can in some cases be just as incapacitating though in a less obvious way than a Physical disability.

Disabled and sick benefit claimants are not alone in their suffering as low wage earners are now much worse off since Osborne’s Budget.

Minimum-wage families would be £2,038 a year richer if George Osborne’s Budget had never happened

Well I could go on, there are so many sad tragic stories so much suffering and despair. I doubt if anyone has read all the above. There are many stories as their are injustices as the Tory government carry on with their destruction of our welfare state and if no one stands up to them things will continue to get worse and more lives will be ruined and more people will die. This is not the society we want for ourselves, for our children or future generations.

The closure of the ILF is but one of the many cuts to benefits and services by the Tory government aimed at sick and disabled people.

There are many many more ongoing and proposed outrages perpetrated against the most vulnerable in our society. If you are in any doubt please read the following which accurately describes the shocking treatment of people who are unfortunate to need to claim benefits as a result of illness, disability, low wages and unemployment:https://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/striving-to-bring-the-bastards-down/

Do read carefully the information in the link above, it may shock you to release that almost half of people in the UK cannot afford an unexpected expense and 39 percent cannot afford one weeks holiday from home. This report does not mention the fact that many people in certain jobs cannot afford to take the full allocation of holiday entitlement or as a result of zero hour contracts are not entitled to holidays, this is often the case now for many people in poorly paid jobs who cannot depend on a regular income, a taxi driver for example. Indeed we have all been in it together except the very rich who have found that their income has increased.

There are just so many reasons why this government should not be in power and those of us who are affected – most everyone except the very rich – know only too well exactly what these reasons are. My objection to the Tories in addition to my opposition to right-wing politics in general is their treatment of sick and disabled people and other benefit claimants, low wages, zero hours and the privatisation of the NHS. In fact I am strongly opposed to privatisation in general which is a lot more widespread than people think. Concerning wages: please don’t be duped by the ” living wage” nonsense recently promised in the budget. Besides the fact that £ 7.20 is hardly a living wage – it is lower than the voluntary living wage of £7.50 which already exists – it is cancelled out by benefit cuts and is in essence a rebrand of the minimum wage which is £6.50. Shadow chancellor, Chris Leslie, has said: “This minimum wage increase is just a rebrand of the minimum wage – trying to call it something different. It doesn’t actually compensate in any way for this massive take away from tax credits. The changes amount to a work penalty that he has introduced into the tax credit system. It hit very, very hard.”

I have to question why the under twenty-fives do not get the right to a living wage. I know that in the past between the ages of 16 to 18 wages may have been slightly lower but twenty-five is ridiculous as by this age many people have the responsibilities of a family or the need to buy their own home, after eighteen you are an adult and should be paid the wage of an adult. Besides surely regardless of age if you are doing the same work as everyone else you should be paid the same wage, it is as simple as that!

Also it is important to note that by 2020 the £9 eventually promised will be worth one hell of a lot less and most certainly won’t be living wage. I would like to see these greedy MPs living on a wage of £7.20 an hour! Another huge rise of 10 percent is in the pipeline for MPs while for public sector workers wages are frozen at 1 percent for four years!

Note the reality as posted by on-line commentator:

£7.20 per hour in 2016, based on the Government’s 30 hour week example results in £216 per week, or £916 per calendar month, £11,232 per annum; stand up the MP who can live on that considering MPs are in line for a £7,000 pay rise taking their salaries to £74,000 with expenses of Conservative and Labour averaging between £30,000 and £40,000 per annum!http://www.channel4.com/news/national-living-wage-will-it-be-enough-to-live-on

Even calculating the usual 40 hour week £7.20 provides a wage of only £288 per week, not really a living wage is it, not with energy bills of £1,265 per year, council Tax of around or just over £1.000 per annum at the cheapest – council tax of course depends on where you live and the type of property you live in. Rent is another huge expenditure and again varies according to location. In London the average rent is £1,500 per annum.:http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jun/15/london-rents-homelet-survey-housing-crisis

Whatever your grievance against the Tory’s in October there is an excellent opportunity to make your voice heard at this year’s Tory conference in Manchester. If you can attend please do so, the more of us who show our outrage the less Cameron can ignore us.

Keep in mind that only about 25 percent of the voting population voted Tory, they do not have a majority.

According to the above the economy and how good their candidate was with local issues seems to be the main reasons why people voted the way they did. How short-sighted, how selfish, how misguided. What about all the people who desperately need the support of the welfare state, the sick and disabled, unemployed and the low paid who have been driven to poverty by vicious welfare reforms.The 3.5 million children now in poverty not only as a result of benefit reductions including punitive sanctions, but low wages and zero hours.

“We are very clear: we cannot and will not support the Bill. If it did what it said on the tin, there might be much to commend it, but it does not. The Government pledge a living wage that even they know is not one, they want a welfare state that is anything but good for our country’s welfare, and they use the guise of economic necessity to cover up ideologically driven cuts. Tonight, we will vote against the Bill because we know that the depth and character of the proposals are unfair, unwise and inhuman, and anything but economically necessary.

“The truth is, the Government do not have to take £12 billion from the poorest families in the country, mostly working families. They are choosing to do so.